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Comment Re:Age Demographic (Score 1) 187

by cin62 (#36132554) Attached to: Perl 5.14 Released
I'm new to programming (2 years), using perl. My job description is not programming, but it is one of the key components of what I do. Based on how suitable perl is for our projects, I'm convinced I'll use it 5 years from now.
Google

Submission + - Google's New Approach To China is to Serve from HK (blogspot.com)

Submitted by abs0lutz3ro
abs0lutz3ro writes: Google stops censoring simplified Chinese search results on google.cn by redirecting users to google.com.hk, which Google maintains is entirely legal. From the article: "Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over... In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk." Seems like google.cn got served; from google.com.hk
The Internet

Submission + - British Library Puts Oldest Surviving Bible Online

Submitted by
Peace Corps Library
Peace Corps Library writes: "BBC reports that about 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible, the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript, have been recovered and put on the internet. "The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," says Dr Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. ""This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation." The New Testament of the Codex Sinaiticus appears in Koine Greek, the original vernacular language and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery until it was found in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany and Britain and is is thought to have survived because the desert air was ideal for preservation and because the monastery, on a Christian island in a Muslim sea, remained untouched, its walls unconquered. The British Library is marking the online launch of the manuscript with an exhibition which includes a range of historic items and artefacts linked to the document. "The availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago.""
Businesses

Submission + - If You Live by Free, You Will Die by Free

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban writes that the problem with companies who have built their business around free is that the more success you have in delivering free, the more expensive it is to stay at the top. "They will be Facebook to your Myspace, or Myspace to your Friendster or Google to your Yahoo," writes Cuban. "Someone out there with a better idea will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience." Cuban says that even Google, who lives and dies by free, knows that "at some point your Black Swan competitor will appear and they will kick your ass" and that is exactly why Google invests in everything and anything they possibly can that they believe can create another business they can depend on in the future searching for the "next big Google thing." Cuban says that for any company that lives by Free, their best choice is to run the company as profitably as possible, focusing only on those things that generate revenue and put cash in the bank. "When you succeed with Free, you are going to die by Free. Your best bet is to recognize where you are in your company's lifecycle and maximize your profits rather than try to extend your stay at the top," writes Cuban. "Like every company in the free space, your lifecycle has come to its conclusion. Don't fight it. Admit it. Profit from it.""
Spam

Submission + - Fake Tamiflu 'out-spams Viagra on Web' (cnn.com)

Submitted by cin62
cin62 writes: The number of Internet scammers offering fake anti-swine flu drug Tamiflu has surpassed those selling counterfeit Viagra, reports CNN. Since the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, was declared a global pandemic last month, there has been an increase in the number of Web sites and junk emails offering Tamiflu for sale. "Every Web site that used to sell Viagra is now selling Tamiflu. We are pretty sure that the same people are making the Tamiflu as are making the Viagra," said Director of Policy for the UK's Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS).
Businesses

Submission + - How To Get Your Program Professionally Marketed?

Submitted by
one-man orchestra
one-man orchestra writes: "I'm the sole programmer of a small multi-platform commercial audio program (a spectrogram editor). After over 6 months on the market, I realised that the program would never just sell itself, and that I need some real marketing done for it. Being a one-man orchestra is becoming increasingly difficult, I only can devote so much time to marketing, my skills in that department are frankly lacking and I'd much rather spend more time coding. Despite my lacklustre part-time marketing effort I still manage to make a modest living out of the sales, my logical assumption is that with someone competent taking care of that part, revenue could greatly scale up. But what's the right way to go about doing this? What type of people/company do I need to contact? What to expect? What to look out for?"
Windows

Submission + - London Stock Exchange to Abandon Windows

Submitted by BBCWatcher
BBCWatcher writes: Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports that the London Stock Exchange is abandoning its Microsoft Windows-based trading platform: "Anyone who was ever fool enough to believe that Microsoft software was good enough to be used for a mission-critical operation had their face slapped this September when the LSE's Windows-based TradElect system brought the market to a standstill for almost an entire day.... Sources at the LSE tell me to this day that the problem was with TradElect.... Sources...tell me that TradElect's failure was the final straw for [the ex-CEO's] tenure. The new CEO, Xavier Rolet, is reported to have immediately decided to put an end to TradElect. TradElect runs on HP ProLiant servers running, in turn, Windows Server 2003. The TradElect software itself is a custom blend of C# and .NET programs, which was created by Microsoft and Accenture, the global consulting firm. On the back-end, it relied on Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Its goal was to maintain sub-ten millisecond response times, real-time system speeds, for stock trades. It never, ever came close to achieving these performance goals."
The Internet

How Apple Rumors Became Reality 86

Posted by Zonk from the go-bloggers-go-blogging-inferno dept.
Lucas123 writes "Computerworld has a story on how bloggers, rumormongers and Web sleuths pulled together the story of the MacBook Air several days before Steve Jobs unveiled the laptop on stage on Tuesday, something that is nearly unprecedented in the annals of Apple announcements. 'Remember the sturm und drang that erupted after Think Secret revealed the coming of the Mac Mini, prompting Apple to take legal action to silence Think Secret? Is Apple off its game on keeping secrets now? Why was this year's secret leak different? In a word: teamwork.' This seems to be good case study on how to use information from sites like AppleInsider, 9to5mac.com and Ars Technica get a peek under the covers on future talks."
The Courts

Submission + - Is a Domain Name an Automatic Trademark? 2

Submitted by
TheWorkingStiff
TheWorkingStiff writes: "I registered a descriptive domain name like "thesimpledog.com" and started a blog on it. About a month later I get a threatening letter from a link farmer who owns "simpledog.com" The owner of simpledog.com is claiming that he owns the trademark to the words simpledog even though he has no real business or rights by that name other than a static page with some text and Adsense slapped on it. There is no product, service or brand whatsoever

Does simply registering a two or three word domain give you instant trademark rights to those words even though you've never done anything with them? Should I give up my domain to a link farmer who is trying to bully me, or does he have a valid right to any phrase he registers that isn't already trademarked?"
Google

Submission + - Verizon Might Deliver Google Phone (wsj.com)

Submitted by
MrCrassic
MrCrassic writes: "There are talks floating around surrounding Google's possible talks with Verizon and possibly T-Mobile to establish an agreement for the carrier to deliver phones carrying Google's speculated mobile operating system.

According to the article, one of the main hurdles slowing down the product are concerns about user privacy and advertising, one of Google's well-renowned strengths. With over 6 million customers potentially at their disposal, could this be "the deal" that establishes Google's hegemony in the internet sphere?

From the article:



After opposing Google Inc.'s moves to dramatically reshape the wireless industry, Verizon Wireless is now in serious discussions with the Internet company over carrying phones tailored to a new Google operating system, a person familiar with the discussions said.

Within two weeks, Google is expected to announce new software and services that handset makers could use to build customized Google-powered phones. The company needs wireless operators to sign onto the project in order to get Google-powered mobile devices in front of consumers by the middle of next year.
"
Software

OpenDocument Foundation To Drop ODF 325

Posted by kdawson from the microsoft-cheering-from-the-sidelines dept.
poet sends us to Computerworld for a story on the intention of the OpenDocument Foundation to drop support for Open Document Format, OASIS and ISO standards not withstanding, in favor of the Compound Documents Format being promoted by the W3C. The foundation's director of business affairs, Sam Hiser, dropped this bomb in a blog posting a couple of weeks ago. Hiser believes CDF has a better shot at compatibility with Microsoft's OOXML, and says that the foundation has been disappointed with the direction of ODF over the last year.
Biotech

Fructose As Culprit In the Obesity Epidemic 821

Posted by kdawson from the check-your-brake-fluid dept.
drewtheman writes "According to an interview with Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology from the University of California, San Francisco, fructose, once touted as diabetic-friendly because it doesn't raise insulin levels directly, could be a major culprit for the obesity epidemic, high blood pressure, and elevated blood levels of LDL in Americans and others worldwide as they adopt American-style diets. Fructose comprises 50% of table sugar and up to 90% of high-fructose corn syrup, both ingredients found in copious quantity in most American prepared foods."
Businesses

Are Marketers Abandoning Second Life? 252

Posted by kdawson from the peaked-too-soon dept.
Vary writes "The LA Times is running a story today saying that marketers are pulling out of Second Life, primarily because — surprise, surprise — the 'more than 8 million residents' figure on the game's Web site is grossly inflated. Also, as it turns out, the virtual world's regular visitors — at most 40,000 of them online at any time — are not only disinterested in in-world marketing, but actively hostile to it, staging attacks on corporate presences such as the Reebok and American Apparel stores. The companies aren't giving up on virtual worlds altogether, though, but moving on to games like There, Gaia Online and Entropia Universe. The article also contains some commentary from a marketing executive who conducted an informal survey of the game and discovered that 'One of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia.' What company wouldn't want to be in on that action?"

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